


Breaking Ground

by regularturtle



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Feelings Realization, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Sickfic, feels kinda weird writing sickfic in a pandemic :/ but it's all about the fluff, if you're reading this you're OBLIGATED to get your FLU SHOT!!, might change it if I think of anything better, so far I've given all my modern AUs punny titles but I'm not sure how I feel about this title
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-02
Updated: 2020-10-02
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:15:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26768605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/regularturtle/pseuds/regularturtle
Summary: As he stepped into the hallway, he could see a soft light streaming out of the kitchen. He pressed his back against the wall before peeking his head through the doorway — only to see, instead of an intruder, a certain firbolg crouched on the floor with his back facing him, wrapped tightly in the largest blanket they owned.In which Caduceus has the flu and is extremely stubborn, and Fjord doesn't get nearly enough sleep.
Relationships: Caduceus Clay & Fjord, Caduceus Clay/Fjord, Fjord & Beauregard Lionett
Comments: 4
Kudos: 119





	Breaking Ground

**Author's Note:**

> You might be wondering: hey, if they have magic in this modern AU, why can't they just cure disease? and to that I say, because I NEED it for the hurt/comfort and fluff
> 
> Also this is basically an AU where they all live together in an apartment like the Xhorhaus :)
> 
> IMPORTANT PSA RELATED TO THE CONTENTS OF THIS STORY:
> 
> get your flu shots, everyone!
> 
> It's especially important this year because if you start showing flu-like symptoms, it'll be easier to tell if it's covid or just the flu if you know you've gotten your flu shot (not that it's 100% foolproof, but still)!
> 
> thank you, PSA over, please enjoy :)

The clock read 3:14 am when Fjord woke with a start.

He groaned as he read the numbers — it was _too damn early_ to be up. He rolled back over, intending to go back to sleep — and then his half-awake mind registered what it was that had woken him in the first place.

He had heard a _crash_ coming from somewhere in the apartment.

Heart suddenly racing — _did someone break in?_ — he jumped out of bed as quickly and quietly as he could, twisting his hand in the beginning of an _eldritch blast_ incantation as he pushed his bedroom door open.

As he stepped into the hallway, he could see a soft light streaming out of the kitchen. He was suddenly glad for the carpet dampening the sound of his steps, even if it made it a bitch to clean up after Nugget when he wasn’t staying with Jester’s mom. He pressed his back against the wall before peeking his head through the doorway — only to see, instead of an intruder, a certain firbolg crouched on the floor with his back facing him, wrapped tightly in the largest blanket they owned.

A certain firbolg who had practically been confined to his bed with the flu for the past few days, but was now apparently up and about in the middle of the night.

“Caduceus?” He whispered, letting his spell dissipate. “What are you…”

One of Caduceus’s ears flicked at the sound of his voice. He sniffed loudly, a horrible, congested noise, before turning his head around and giving him a forced smile.

“Oh, Fjord. Hi.”

Fjord wiped some of the sleep out of his eye, his hand dropping limply to his side as he frowned. “What are you doing? You should be asleep.”

Caduceus pulled the blanket closer around himself before standing up, wobbling slightly. “I’m kind of tired of sleeping,” he said with a grimace. “And I wanted some tea, but, um…” And now that Caduceus had moved out of the way, Fjord could see what had made the noise that had woken him up: the shattered remains of a teapot lying in a steaming puddle of tea. “Sorry for waking you. Uh, you should just go back to bed.”

“Oh,” Fjord said, and his heart ached slightly at the sight of his friend standing there. He was hunched over, trembling slightly even with his near white-knuckled grip on the thick blanket, still wracked with chills. His cheeks were flushed, and — _wait,_ was that just from being sick, or were those tears he was trying to hold back? Was that sniffle from before just from congestion?

“Hey,” Fjord said gently, treading lightly in this situation he was suddenly unsure about. “Don’t worry about it. It’s just a teapot, no harm done.”

Caduceus sniffled again. “Yeah, um, it’s fine. I can clean it up.” He bowed his head, eyes trained on the remains of his teapot and pointedly avoiding eye contact. “My mom made this for me a while ago. Um — yeah, I’ll clean this up.”

 _Oh._ Suddenly Fjord felt like he was intruding on something much deeper than he could imagine. He had never had any family other than the Mighty Nein, couldn’t fully understand what was going through Caduceus’s head right now. Caduceus almost _never_ let it be known if something was bothering him, so if he was showing any hint of being visually upset right now, then he must be _real fucking_ upset.

Fjord could imagine, maybe, how he would feel if he’d broken the pendant of the Wildmother that Caduceus had given him, or if he had somehow managed to damage the Star Razor.

“Wait, let me clean this up,” he said, grabbing Caduceus’s hand as it began to reach for the paper towels on the counter. It quivered like a leaf in his grasp, and he could see the skin beginning to blister where the boiling water must have scalded it. “You’re sick. You need to go back to bed.”

Caduceus was normally one of the most stubborn people he knew, so it truly was a testament to how sick he was that, after a few seconds, he just nodded.

Fjord patted him on the hand, and tried to inconspicuously heal his burn. It definitely wasn't sneaky, since Caduceus would _probably_ notice the divine healing energy flowing into his hand, but it was worth a shot. Caduceus smiled at him, and even though he still looked upset, the smile itself at least looked genuine this time.

“Alright! Go to sleep,” he whisper-yelled as Caduceus ducked through the doorway, sneezing loudly as he disappeared from the kitchen. Which left Fjord alone with a pool of rapidly-cooling tea, and the broken pieces of Caduceus’s prized possession.

 _There’s got to be something I can do about this,_ he thought as he started pressing balled-up paper towels into the tile floor. Even in his clear misery, Caduceus would never ask for help with something like this. He probably would have just tucked the shards away somewhere and pretended this had never happened if Fjord hadn’t woken up.

Could he buy him a new teapot? It would be a nice gesture, but it wouldn’t be anything like the original. Caduceus would probably love it all the same, knowing him, but Fjord didn’t think that would be enough. He didn’t suppose he could use _cure wounds_ on a broken teapot.

 _Oh, wait._ A lightbulb went off in his head as he threw the last of the sodden paper towels into the trash can. He opened one of the kitchen drawers — _nope, not there_ — then another — _I swear to Melora, who keeps moving everything around?_ — before he found what he was looking for, and got to work.

———

Two hours, twenty-seven minutes, a ton of whispered curse words, and a whole lot of masking tape later, Fjord held a shoddily-pieced back together teapot in his hand. He wasn’t kidding himself, it did _not_ look good, but it sure as hell looked better than a pile of broken clay. Grinning at his handiwork, and blushing a bit self-consciously at how _totally not good_ it looked, he stepped out of the kitchen.

He started to turn to walk towards Caduceus’s room, before he noticed there was snoring and snuffling coming from the other direction. He backtracked, turned around, and lo and behold, as he stepped into the living room, there was Caduceus, fast asleep on the couch.

 _Seriously?_ Fjord supposed if he couldn’t be stubborn about cleaning up, Caduceus must have decided to remain stubborn about going back to bed. He must’ve dozed off while waiting for Fjord to be done in the kitchen.

Fjord gingerly placed the teapot down on the coffee table and, after a moment of hesitation, reached over to tuck the blanket around Caduceus a bit more tightly. He sat down in the armchair next to the couch. Would it be better to wake him now, he thought, or to actually try and fully repair it first?

Looking at Caduceus fast asleep beside him, it suddenly hit Fjord that is was nearly 6 am, and he was running on probably two hours of sleep at the most. The armchair suddenly felt _extremely_ comfortable, he thought with a yawn…

And the next thing he knew, he shot awake as someone punched his shoulder.

 _”What the —“_ he shouted, jolting upright suddenly. Rubbing his now sore shoulder, he craned his neck around to see Beau standing behind him.

”Dude,” she said, “why are you both sleeping in the living room?”

Fjord blinked a few times as his tired brain caught up, and he quickly looked over at the couch — _yep, still asleep,_ he thought with an internal sigh of relief. Even if he had been at full health, Caduceus was always one of the deepest sleepers he knew.

“Did you really have to do that?” he hissed. Glancing at his watch, it was now a few minutes after 6:30.

Beau shrugged. “Nah. Thought it would be funny though.” Suddenly, she noticed the jumble of masking tape hiding a semi-fixed teapot sitting on the coffee table. “Oh, shit, what happened there?”

“Caught him trying to make tea last night,” he said, although he wasn’t sure if just over three hours ago really counted as _last night._ “He dropped it, I guess. I tried to fix it.”

“Yeah,” Beau said, clearly trying to hold back a chuckle at Fjord’s attempt to fix it. Then with more seriousness, “Dude always tries to do everything himself, even when he’s sick.”

“Yeah.” They’d all tried their best to take care of him over the last few days, but he literally _never_ asked for help.

“Well,” Beau said after a moment, “sorry about punching you, I guess. Gonna go for my morning run.”

As Beau ran out the door, Fjord quickly returned to his own bedroom, grabbed his phone off the nightstand, and shot a message to the rest of the apartment — _can you all try to be quiet when you’re up this morning? also Jester can you help me out with something when you’re awake._

A moment after he hit send, as he stepped back into the hallway, he heard a tone from behind Jester’s door. _Oops, not on silent._ And a few seconds after that, his phone buzzed with an incoming text: _fjoooooord you woke me up! >:(_

He rapped his knuckles on her door, and Jester cracked it open.

”Sorry, sorry,” he said sheepishly. “Since you’re awake, though, can you help me with something really quickly?”

 _”Fine,”_ Jester sighed dramatically, and she followed as he walked back into the living room.

“Aw, Caduceus,” she whispered as she saw the snoring firbolg. “Why is he sleeping out here?”

“I woke up because he dropped his teapot,” he said, quickly skimming through what he’d already told Beau and pointing to the teapot on the table. “Convinced him to let me clean it up for him, told him to go back to bed, but I suppose he sat down here and ended up falling asleep.”

Jester pouted in sympathy. “Oh no, not his teapot! I’m glad you woke up to help him out; he probably wouldn’t have said anything about it to us.”

“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking, too. Do you think you could use _mending_ to fix it?”

“Oh! Yes! Let me just —“ She held up a finger and ran out of the room, coming back with two lodestones. “Okay, okay, I got it!”

She picked up the teapot and stared at it intently while muttering under her breath, brow furrowed in concentration. After a few minutes, she grinned and held it out to Fjord.

“Okay, all done!”

Fjord took it in both hands and cautiously began peeling off the tape, as if it would suddenly all fall apart again once it was removed. But Jester’s magic held, and in his hands he had a whole, slightly lumpier than before, teapot. It was clearly handmade, and now that it was whole, he could make out a trail of pink flowers painted on one side.

“Jester,” he said with a smile, “you are amazing. Thank you _so much.”_

“Yeah, no problem! Okay,” she yawned, “I’m going back to sleep. Let me know if Caduceus likes it!”

Fjord stood in the living room for a minute and fiddled around aimlessly with his phone, trying to decide whether he should wait around or go back to sleep, before the front door opened and Beau came back in.

“Hey,” she said, beelining straight to the kitchen. He heard the sound of the fridge opening and closing, then she returned with a water bottle in hand. “Oh, ‘morning, Cad.”

He spun around and saw Caduceus now sitting up, eyes narrowed as the weak early morning sunlight was beginning to stream through the window and hit him right in the face. “G’morning, Beau,” he mumbled, scrunching his eyes together before turning away and sneezing into his elbow. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep in here… I should go back to my —“ He cut off, eyes widening as he spied the teapot on the table.

“Oh, hey, you actually fixed it!” Beau exclaimed. “Nice job, man.”

“You…” Caduceus trailed off, astonished. “You _fixed_ it.”

“Well,” Fjord said, rubbing the back of his neck meekly, “Jester’s the one who actually _mended_ it. I just —“

“Take some credit, man,” Beau said, punctuating her words with a slightly more amicable punch to the same shoulder as before. “You’re the one who pieced the whole thing back together. How long did it even take you?”

Fjord could feel the blood rising to his face at all the sudden attention, and he hoped he wasn’t blushing too obviously. “Uh, a couple… hours?”

“I almost don't know what to say,” Caduceus beamed. “This was a real kindness. You don’t know how much this means to me; I _really_ appreciate it.” And now Caduceus was blushing too, and he looked near tears again except this time he was happy, and _gods_ Fjord didn’t know how to handle all this emotion.

“Well, I know I just woke up, but I’m kind of still exhausted.” Caduceus stretched out his bad knee with a slight wince — sleeping on the couch certainly wouldn’t have helped with any soreness. He stood up, pulling the blanket back around himself like a cloak. He was still shivering slightly, but the sleep seemed to have done him some good — he didn't look nearly as miserable as before. “I’ll have to make some tea later — or, uh, maybe ask one of you help me out with that,” he said, eyeing the recently repaired teapot still sitting on the table. “But I think I’m going to go back to bed now. _Thank you,_ Fjord.”

“Seriously, don’t mention it,” Fjord called after him as he padded towards his bedroom, the blanket trailing on the floor behind him.

“Dude, you shouldn’t downplay yourself so much. Cad’s lucky to have you.” Beau plopped down onto the now vacant couch and threw her feet up on the coffee table. She wagged her eyebrows at him.

 _Why is she — what’s with the eyebrows?_ “He’s lucky to have all of us,” Fjord said slowly. “We’ve all been trying to help him feel better.”

“Yeah, you especially, though.”

“What are you getting at?”

“I’m not getting at anything,” she said, holding her hands up. “I’m just saying, you both seem to care about each other a lot.”

Fjord had already done a lot of blushing this morning — why couldn’t his face just _stop_ doing that?

“Okay,” he said, steeling his expression. “I’m tired as all fuck, I’m going back to sleep.”

“Good night!” Beau yelled after him, even though it was nearly 7 in the morning.

As he crawled back under the covers, he thought back to the warm smile Caduceus had graced him with before he had gone back to bed himself. Something about having that affection directed towards him made his chest suddenly feel tight. Which was strange. Why would one of his friends being happy make him feel _nervous?_

And suddenly Beau’s words clicked.

_Oh, shit._

Well, there was no way he would be falling back asleep any time soon.

**Author's Note:**

> me: I want to read a fic about this!  
> also me: okay cool, you should write it yourself!  
> me: okay I wrote it :)
> 
> me: wait a second I hate reading my own writing
> 
> Come yell at me about Critical Role on Tumblr @regularturtle!


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